This was an excellent climb for me. I hiked up to the refuge and spent the night. The refuge was very comfortable considering you are over 15,000 ft! I did notice mold on the walls in my photos! Something that is hard to see by candle light! I would use a helmet for the route as there could be falling rock. My husband completed the regular route without a rope, but I was roped to our guide. It was the highlight of my trip to Ecuador as we only made it up to 17,500 ft on Cotopaxi.

It was a good couple of hours of scrambling from the hut. Paso de la muerte was a little bit scary with some snow thrown in and the visibility was bad. Descended using the scree slope which was great :)

Started at 3500m about 1-2 km past El Chaupi and followed the river through the trees and went north around the smaller rocky hill at the eastern foot of Norte. From there, we went straight up the sand and met the scree/sand route where it turns uphill. There was some snow, but only in the shadows. We had a beautifully clear morning but got covered in clouds halfway up the sandy slope at around 11:00. No rain or snow. Returned via the scree/sand route and back down the road to where we started. 11 hours total. We had a bit of a run in with the ranger because of the new 5000m rule. We had to convince him that we were just going to the refuge and no farther.

I climbed via the normal route with a few members of a local mountaineering club. There was some ice in places, but we had pretty good conditions overall and the route was easier than I expected it would be.

Spent a night at the refugio with my daughter and Guide Segundo. We had recently summited Pasochoa and Corazon and needed to spend some time at or above 15k in preparation for Cotopaxi. Weather conditions could not have been better. Partly sunny / light wind. There was some snow in shadowy spots, perhaps 1/2 an inch. Scrambling was done on dry exposed rock which offered good nooks and crannies to grab hold of. There were a couple of spots with significant exposure and being roped to an experienced guide eased any concerns I had. The three of us occupied and essentially took up all the space on the tiny summit. That was cool. This was our favorite peak due to the challenging scrambling and nice weather. Also, the altitude was not affecting us, yet.....Next Cotopaxi!

My two buddies planned for the Matterhorn, but after not getting the stand-by flight to europe, we flew down to Ecuador and climbed Iliniza Norte. Wish we could have done Sur, but Norte was fun all the same.

At night with moonlight hiking from El Chaupi next to the cottage in about 4 hours (they wanted me to pay $5 for camping next to it!). At 5.30 am starting the hike up. Surprisingly easy walk (almost no snow on the way) and in 1:15 hrs with slow pace first one on the top.

Spent the night at La Llovizna... great price on lodging but dinner was a bit steep. Our organization required us to get a guide for this trip so he met us at the hostal in the morning - at least transportation was included. We began at La Virgencita as clouds began rolling in. We decided going up and down the direct route because the guide thought it safer with my friend´s experience. The steep sandy section is brutal! By the time we got to rock, it began hailing a little bit...and this quickly turned into large hail, and thunder began rolling in around us. We hurried up the scrambling section on wet rock as the thunder got closer and closer, then saw the summit cross with immense relief. We began descending a minute later on extra slippy rock covered in a layer of snow...sure made things really interesting. This was a pretty exciting summit for us with such crazy weather.

All the climbing book say there isn't snow on Norte. They may be right most of the time but there was quite a bit when I tried it. Only made it to the Paso de la Muerte and had to turn around cause I didn't bring an ice axe, crampons, or rope (and I only had 1.5 hrs to get back to the parking lot to meet my ride, made it down though)